In most jurisdictions, before a newly designed aerial vehicle may conduct airborne flight operations, the aerial vehicle must undergo a number of testing evolutions in order to confirm that the design of the aerial vehicle is both safe and airworthy. In the United States, aerial vehicles must be subjected to a two-part assessment administered by the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”), and receive both a Type Certification and an Airworthiness Certification as prescribed in Title 14, Parts 21, 23 and 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations. According to these regulations, a newly designed aerial vehicle's sizing, electrical and power plant specifications must be evaluated in order to demonstrate that the aerial vehicle may take off, operate aloft and land reliably. Thereafter, the aerial vehicle is constructed and tested in order to validate such specifications, and confirm that the aerial vehicle may be operated safely. Similar procedures exist in other jurisdictions, including those administered by the European Aviation Safety Agency (“EASA”) in Europe, or the Civil Aviation Bureau (“JCAB”) in Japan.
Currently, processes for certifying an aerial vehicle as safe and airworthy are both slow and cautious in nature. For example, aircraft certification regulations in the United States, which were first enacted not long after the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, are intended to ensure the safety of pilots and passengers during flight, and to avoid injuries to those on the ground in the event of a crash. Consistent with these goals, certification processes are intentionally deliberate: in order to obtain a Type Certification and an Airworthiness Certification, a proposed aerial vehicle must be designed on paper, e.g., based on estimated loading conditions that may be expected during flight, and its specifications evaluated, before conducting testing on the various details, systems and subsystems of the proposed aerial vehicle, constructing the aerial vehicle, and subjecting the aerial vehicle to in-flight tests at various altitudes, attitudes and velocities. As a direct result, the number of new aerial vehicles that are certified and produced each year is typically very low.
Wind tunnels are hollow structural facilities in which the aerodynamic qualities and durability of rigid objects, such as aerial vehicles, may be evaluated. For example, a prototype of an aerial vehicle may be placed within a wind tunnel and subjected to artificially generated flows of air or other gases in order to evaluate the effects of aerodynamic forces or moments on the aerial vehicle, such as by simulating flight. Additionally, the air or other gases may be charged with particulate matter or liquids in order to simulate the destructive effects that such materials may have on the aerial vehicle when the aerial vehicle comes into contact with such gases, particulate matter or liquids during actual flight at various speeds or altitudes.
When an object is to be subjected to aerodynamic testing in a wind tunnel, the object is typically mounted to a fixed sting, and the flow of air or other fluids or other matter is subsequently initiated. A fixed sting is a rod or other rigid fixture that is used to provide structural support for the object in a non-obtrusive manner that minimizes any disturbances in the direction of flow.